I shook my head and turned down Billie Holiday. ‘Been driving aimlessly for a while. I needed a place of refuge.’
‘So it would be stupid of me to ask if things are OK at home, since you obviously haven’t been there since last night.’ When I looked questioning he pointed to my clothes. ‘Those are Soma’s,’ he said. ‘You don’t own anything with full-length sleeves.’
‘Well done, Sherlock. You’re not entirely right, though. I walked through my front door this morning. Then walked back out. Don’t plan to return in any hurry. Basically, I’m avoiding my mother and not speaking to my father. Why are you carrying a quiche?’
‘You have to admit, I win the contest for unspeakable fathers.’ He twirled the quiche dish on his fingertips. ‘We always acted like Sonia was the one who had got unlucky when fathers were handed out, but you know what?’
‘Yeah. Your father’s some kind of Mafia don, and my father’s just a few steps away from being an advocate of ethnic cleansing. Meanwhile, Sonia’s father might not even be a drug smuggler for all we know. Why are you carrying a quiche?’
‘Right. I mean, he could be an arms dealer.’ Zia grinned, and placed the quiche next to me. ‘I just felt like picking it up from the Club bakery on my way back from dropping Karim at the airport. But I hate quiche. So you can have it.’
‘Such a gent.’
Zia sat on the floor next to the black leather sofa on which I was reclining, resting his head against the sofa arm. ‘You doing OK?’ he said.
‘No. You?’
‘Not even close.’
I laid my hand on the top of his head. ‘It’s not your fault, Zia. You didn’t know what he was going to do.’
‘Doesn’t stop me being partly responsible.’ He pressed the CD remote control and Billie became Paul Simon. We listened in silence for a while until Paul started repeating I don’t want no part of this crazy love/I don’t want no part of your love again and again. I looked at Zia; he seemed oblivious to the lyrics, and to me, as he sat blowing smoke rings in the air, his expression mired in concentration. I prised the remote out of his hand and switched off the music.
Zia looked up at me. ‘Raheen, I want you to do something for me. I’ve been thinking about this since last night. I want you to call Sonia and tell her you’ll be perfectly happy if she marries Karim.’
‘That’s not funny, Zia.’
Zia got up and walked over to the bar. ‘Nothing about this is funny.’
‘You are not having a drink at this hour. Put that down.’
Zia set the Black Label back on the bar and lit up another cigarette. ‘Rumours stick. No good family will want their son marrying her. Not after everyone who knows her father said “I told you so” when he was arrested. Not after she’s been so publicly humiliated by those pillars of society, the Ranas. No, the only proposals she’ll get now will be from money-grabbing scum. If she means anything to me, I can’t let her marry anyone like that. I can’t. She breaks my heart if she gets a splinter in her finger; how could I bear to see…’ He shook his head. ‘Far better she marry Karim.’
I walked over to the bar. ‘Or you.’
Zia cradled the Black Label to him. ‘It’ll never happen. Even if I thought she’d agree, which I know she won’t, I’ll never do something that would allow my father to think his way of fixing things works. Please, Raheen. Be as true a friend as I know you can be. Let Karim go. You’ve lost him already, you know that. You lost him before any of us were born, back in 1971. Now let him go. It’s not as though you believe they won’t be happy together.’
He was being serious. If a gold sign with flashing light bulbs had appeared in front of me with the words here is your chance at redemption I don’t think I would have been very surprised. I brushed Zia’s hair off his forehead. I would not have thought him capable of such an act of love. In some way I had always been slightly condescending about his feelings for Sonia. I thought those feelings had a lot of breadth, but little depth. I think I liked seeing Zia as somewhat shallow; the party guy, the spoilt boy. I liked the absence of startling contrast when I stood next to him. Well, no more. I looked at Zia’s framed photograph of Sonia, Karim, himself and me. Remarkable people, my friends. But did he really think he could see her with Karim and not resent them both, even if they were happy, particularly if they were happy? Perhaps resentment was a price he was willing to pay.
I slid off the bar stool. ‘Zee, I have to go and talk to someone. I’ll be back soon.’
He nodded, and as I turned to go he tugged my sleeve. ‘Is love stronger when it lets go or when it holds on?’
I went to ask my mother.
I knew she hadn’t gone to the office that morning, but was at Karachi’s premier art gallery instead, interviewing Aunty Laila about her upcoming sculpture exhibit. The two of them were the only people at the gallery when I got there a few minutes later. I opened the door to hear Aunty Laila talking on the phone to someone at a plant nursery about getting a poinsettia to decorate her hallway for the party she was having that night. Aunty Laila was horrified to hear the price of the plant and said to the nurseryman, ‘That’s very expensive. I only want it for one night. Who’s going to pay that much for a plant for one night? Can’t I just borrow it for a few hours?’ I rolled my eyes, but it seemed that the nurseryman agreed, because there was Aunty Laila saying, ‘Oh, wonderful, but you don’t really need it back in the morning, do you? Early afternoon all right instead? I’m very tired the morning after parties. You know how it is… Good… Well, I think we’ll have to discuss what you mean by “in case of damages” when I come to pick it up. Surely you’re not going to take an inventory of every leaf and check it for signs of discoloration the next morning?…I don’t believe it…I don’t believe it… Really? Who else?…No!…No!… No!… Well, I assure you I don’t invite that sort of guest to my parties.’
She hung up and turned to my mother. ‘You will not believe what he just told me certain politicians have been known to do to plants. Yick! Oh, sorry, sweetheart, you’re really not in the mood for gossip, are you?’ She looked up and saw me before my mother did. ‘Oh. I’ll just go and get something from downstairs.’ She walked past me towards the door, stopping on her way to put her hand on my cheek. ‘Darling, if you hold everyone accountable for what they said and did in ’71 hardly anyone escapes whipping.’
The comfort of collective guilt.
I kicked off my shoes and walked across the cool beige floor towards my mother. She was standing at the far end of the gallery, looking down at the street below. I stood next to her, crossed my arms and leaned forward, pressing my forehead against the window. My breath misted an O in the glass.
There was a street sign right below the window and I pointed to it and said, ‘So this is Khayaban-e-Jami.’
‘What?’
‘We always just refer to it as the road from Schon Circle to the submarine roundabout. Why is there a submarine in the middle of a roundabout?’
‘When they first put it up Bunty said it was so that the Rangers and the army guys could hide inside and shoot out of the window thingies during showdowns between the law-enforcement agencies and political activists. But we all said he was being absurd. When do shoot-outs happen in our part of town? And why are we talking about streets and landmarks?’
I laughed shortly. A foot-high bronze man, poised to dive, stood at the edge of the desk beside me. I ran my thumb along his shoulder blades and wrapped my hand around his chest. ‘How much did she love him? Aunty Maheen. How much did she love Aba when they were engaged?’
Ami looked me straight in the eyes. If she’d said love wasn’t quantifiable, I might have stormed out of there. But she said, ‘Very much. Very, very much.’